repack: fix a bug to reject deferrable primary key fallback for concurrent mode
Chao Li <li.evan.chao@gmail.com>
From: Chao Li <li.evan.chao@gmail.com>
To: PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Date: 2026-04-17T03:35:14Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
Attachments
- v1-0001-Reject-deferrable-primary-key-fallback-in-REPACK-.patch (application/octet-stream) patch v1-0001
Hi,
I am continuing to test REPACK, and I found another issue.
In check_concurrent_repack_requirements(), if a table has no replica identity index, the code falls back to using the primary key if one exists. The problem is that a deferrable primary key cannot be used for this purpose. WAL generation does not consider a deferrable primary key to be a replica identity, so concurrent mode may not receive enough old tuple information to replay concurrent changes.
I tested this with the following procedure.
1 - Create a table
```
create table t (id int, v text, primary key (id) deferrable initially deferred);
insert into t values (1, 'a');
```
2 - Attach a debugger to session 1's backend process. I used vscode. Add a breakpoint at the first process_concurrent_changes() call. This blocks the REPACK process and gives session 2 time to issue a DELETE.
3 - In session 1, issue a repack, it will stop at the breakpoint
```
repack (concurrently) t;
```
4 - In session 2
```
delete from t where id=1;
```
5 - Detach session 1 from the debugger, so that repack continues and tries to re-apply the delete from session 2.
6 - repack fails with:
```
evantest=# repack (concurrently) t;
ERROR: incomplete delete info
CONTEXT: slot "repack_96468", output plugin "pgrepack", in the change callback, associated LSN 0/2A5717F0
REPACK decoding worker
```
The error comes from this code in pgrepack.c:
```
case REORDER_BUFFER_CHANGE_DELETE:
{
HeapTuple oldtuple;
oldtuple = change->data.tp.oldtuple;
if (oldtuple == NULL)
elog(ERROR, "incomplete delete info");
repack_store_change(ctx, relation, CHANGE_DELETE, oldtuple);
}
break;
```
The root cause is that repack.c assumes rel->rd_pkindex is usable as an identity index, but logical decoding does not treat a deferrable primary key as replica identity. As a result, the decoding worker may not get the old tuple needed to re-apply the delete.
To fix the problem, I think we should just not fall back to deferrable primary key in the first place. See the attached patch.
With this patch, repack will quickly for the test:
```
evantest=# repack (concurrently) t;
ERROR: cannot process relation "t"
HINT: Relation "t" has a deferrable primary key.
```
Best regards,
--
Chao Li (Evan)
HighGo Software Co., Ltd.
https://www.highgo.com/
Commits
Same data as JSON:
GET /api/v1/messages/:b64id/commits
the thread's linked commits as JSON, with link sources.
API reference →
-
Remove working test that was supposed to fail
- 2fd787d0aac1 19 (unreleased) landed
-
REPACK CONCURRENTLY: Don't use deferrable primary keys
- 832e220d99af 19 (unreleased) landed